A particularly interesting thing that they point out in here is that the release notes for Safari 12.1 (for iOS) and the release notes for Safari Technology Preview (for macOS) both include: It...
Removed support for the expired Do Not Track standard to prevent potential use as a fingerprinting variable.
It was never useful anyway, but apparently Apple now considers it completely obsolete. I'm interested to see if the other browsers follow suit. One especially weird aspect of this is that the California Online Privacy Protection Act (CalOPPA) requires sites to explain what they do with the Do Not Track signal. This results in useful clauses in privacy policies like this one from Tildes's privacy policy:
Tildes does not alter its behavior based on whether your browser sends a Do Not Track (DNT) header or not.
By the way, thank you and your co-developers for not putting tracking mechanisms in this site! It's great to see that privacy badger shows a zero on green and uBlock Origins doesn't need to do...
By the way, thank you and your co-developers for not putting tracking mechanisms in this site! It's great to see that privacy badger shows a zero on green and uBlock Origins doesn't need to do anything on this site!
I feel like this has been a known thing for a while. The standard was crippled before it even got out of the gate. It’s really a shame that we have to rely on more brute force methods like...
I feel like this has been a known thing for a while. The standard was crippled before it even got out of the gate. It’s really a shame that we have to rely on more brute force methods like Ghostery/Provacy Badger or uBlock.
People who have a lot of technical or privacy-related knowledge might have known that, but the article is about a survey they did that showed about half of people didn't realize it was voluntary:...
People who have a lot of technical or privacy-related knowledge might have known that, but the article is about a survey they did that showed about half of people didn't realize it was voluntary:
Unfortunately, tens of millions of Americans (and many more worldwide) who enable DNT don’t know that it's only sending a voluntary signal. Of the respondents who heard of and were at least "slightly familiar" with the Do Not Track setting, 44.4% (±7.3) of them were not aware of its true voluntary nature. Even among those who have consciously enabled DNT in their browser, 41.4% (±8.9) didn't know that it only sends a voluntary signal.
And beyond that, the large majority expected major sites to be doing something with it:
In fact, most major tech companies, including Google, Facebook, and Twitter, do not respect the Do Not Track setting when you visit and use their sites – a fact of which 77.3% (±3.6) of U.S. adults overall weren’t aware.
You’re right. I should have been more specific and said that it was known among people who were following the specification as it was developed. But I still think we need something stronger than...
You’re right. I should have been more specific and said that it was known among people who were following the specification as it was developed.
But I still think we need something stronger than Do Not Track that’s codified in some sort of law. The biggest problem with DNT was that there were no repercussions for ignoring it.
The article addresses this directly:
As a matter of fact, 71.9% (±3.9) of U.S. adults "somewhat favor" or "strongly favor" a federal regulation requiring companies to respect the Do Not Track signal.
And
When educated about the true function and limitation of the DNT setting, 75.5% (±3.8) of U.S. adults say it’s "important" or "very important" that these companies "respect the Do Not Track signal when it is enabled." So, in shocking news, when people say they don’t want to be tracked, they really don’t want to be tracked.
I labeled it Noise because (as I replied) "I feel like this has been a known thing for a while" directly contradicts the survey results in the article that shows that it's not well-known, which...
I labeled it Noise because (as I replied) "I feel like this has been a known thing for a while" directly contradicts the survey results in the article that shows that it's not well-known, which indicated to me that they were commenting based entirely on the headline.
That might have been a little harsh though, so I've removed my label now.
I never enabled DNT because it just seemed like such a poor solution. That said, I would gladly turn on a header that automatically dismissed all those obnoxious cookie warnings.
I never enabled DNT because it just seemed like such a poor solution. That said, I would gladly turn on a header that automatically dismissed all those obnoxious cookie warnings.
A particularly interesting thing that they point out in here is that the release notes for Safari 12.1 (for iOS) and the release notes for Safari Technology Preview (for macOS) both include:
It was never useful anyway, but apparently Apple now considers it completely obsolete. I'm interested to see if the other browsers follow suit. One especially weird aspect of this is that the California Online Privacy Protection Act (CalOPPA) requires sites to explain what they do with the Do Not Track signal. This results in useful clauses in privacy policies like this one from Tildes's privacy policy:
By the way, thank you and your co-developers for not putting tracking mechanisms in this site! It's great to see that privacy badger shows a zero on green and uBlock Origins doesn't need to do anything on this site!
I feel like this has been a known thing for a while. The standard was crippled before it even got out of the gate. It’s really a shame that we have to rely on more brute force methods like Ghostery/Provacy Badger or uBlock.
People who have a lot of technical or privacy-related knowledge might have known that, but the article is about a survey they did that showed about half of people didn't realize it was voluntary:
And beyond that, the large majority expected major sites to be doing something with it:
You’re right. I should have been more specific and said that it was known among people who were following the specification as it was developed.
But I still think we need something stronger than Do Not Track that’s codified in some sort of law. The biggest problem with DNT was that there were no repercussions for ignoring it.
The article addresses this directly:
And
Not sure why this was labelled negatively (it's not noise, offtopic, or a joke), so I've voted to try and make this post visible again.
I labeled it Noise because (as I replied) "I feel like this has been a known thing for a while" directly contradicts the survey results in the article that shows that it's not well-known, which indicated to me that they were commenting based entirely on the headline.
That might have been a little harsh though, so I've removed my label now.
I never enabled DNT because it just seemed like such a poor solution. That said, I would gladly turn on a header that automatically dismissed all those obnoxious cookie warnings.